BENJAMIN WATSON | The New Fight for Life (Ep. 473)

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1:57 This is Undaunted Life Man's podcast.

2:20 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

2:21 Let's get into it.

2:22 All right, guys.

2:23 Today, we got a special guest on the podcast.

2:25 His name is Benjamin Watson.

2:27 He is a retired Super Bowl-winning first-round draft pick tied in to the NFL, and he played

2:31 16 seasons for the New England Patriots, Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints, and Baltimore

2:36 Ravens.

2:37 He and his wife have seven children, and he is known for being a very devout Christian

2:41 and pro-life advocate, and he is the author of a brand new book that is out now, if you're

2:45 listening to this, called The New Fight for Life, Row Race and a Pro-Life Commitment to

2:51 Justice.

2:52 I was very excited about this interview because I love talking about the pro-life cause.

2:56 I love talking about the cause of life, and I was excited to talk to him because obviously

3:00 he has a large profile and a big background in sports and things that I really enjoy,

3:06 but this is a guy that never really thought he'd be going around speaking about the pro-life

3:10 cause while he's doing two-a-days or doing mini-camps or any of those types of things,

3:15 and yet here he is.

3:16 But I will give you one little caveat before we get into the interview, because in the

3:20 interview, we talk about football, we talk about his book, we talk about some of his viewpoints

3:24 on the pro-life cause and how the pro-life cause is a little different, and I told him

3:29 this off-air as well, but I read his book from cover to cover.

3:32 That's what I do for every interview, right?

3:34 And there are places where he and I have significant agreement.

3:37 There are places where he and I have significant disagreement, and then there are some places

3:41 where it doesn't really matter that much, but I told him, I was like, you know, I want

3:44 to focus on the fact that we're both team Jesus, we're both team pro-life.

3:48 We just have some disagreements as to how we should go about that, but there are some

3:52 unique arguments in here that we don't really hear a lot from your typical pro-life people.

3:58 And I was going to kind of give, you know, a little bit of a repudiation of some of the

4:01 things in the book later and all that, but this is just what I'll tell you.

4:04 If you pick up a new fight for life and you read it, and you think to yourself, well,

4:09 why didn't Kyle ask him about this in the interview?

4:11 Believe me, I wanted to.

4:13 I wanted to do a 10-hour long interview where we got through everything and tried to find

4:16 some common ground, but I wanted to get to some areas where there would definitely be

4:20 some pushback, some areas where I was very, very confused.

4:23 And I wasn't fully satisfied with all of his arguments, but that's not necessarily the

4:27 point of a short interview like this is to give you an idea as to here's how this person

4:31 thinks about a certain issue.

4:33 It might be different than your way.

4:34 Let's put our each of our ways on the table and let's see what we can combine or let's

4:38 see what we can take whole cloth and make the best way to move forward.

4:42 And so to anyone that might be screaming at their phone or at their speakers thinking,

4:46 like, why didn't he ask him about this?

4:47 Why didn't he do that?

4:48 Believe me, all that stuff was in my brain.

4:50 But I was following rabbit trails that I thought were going to be best to producing a conversation

4:55 that was palatable for you for today and then gave you enough to basically challenge some

4:59 of your maybe closely held notions about the whole pro-life cause.

5:03 So maybe I hit the mark on that.

5:04 Maybe I didn't.

5:05 You can obviously let me know in the comments and you can let me know through my email inbox.

5:09 But I really, really did enjoy my time with Benjamin.

5:11 He is just an absolutely stand-up guy.

5:13 So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.

5:16 Benjamin Watson, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.

5:19 Hey, man, good to be here with you.

5:21 I appreciate the opportunity.

5:22 Hey, this is going to be fun today.

5:24 And I told you out there, like, you know, we're going to get into this.

5:26 We're going to get into the meat of your book today.

5:29 But I feel like it would be deeply inappropriate, Benjamin, if we were to have a conversation

5:34 and not at least talk about football a little bit, okay?

5:38 Because, you know, I don't know if anyone knows this, but football is kind of part of

5:41 your story.

5:42 It's kind of part of your, your background.

5:43 But maybe I have some questions that you haven't quite been asked before about football.

5:48 So, so if you're cool, you want to start with a little bit of football talk?

5:51 Let's talk everybody loves football.

5:53 Okay.

5:54 Everybody loves football.

5:55 So you played football in the most competitive conference while in college.

6:00 You played in the SEC for the Georgia Bulldogs, Go Dogs, and then you played at the highest

6:04 level of football period playing 16 seasons in the NFL.

6:08 What I want to know is I know baseball better than I know football.

6:13 And I know the gap between a really good high school player and the gap between a major

6:17 leaguer is like it's miles apart.

6:21 But I don't really know in football, what is the gap between like a stud at an SEC school

6:28 and somebody in the NFL?

6:30 Because there are guys that you watch on Saturdays and then they can't make the practice squad

6:35 come the next season on Sunday.

6:36 So what's that gap like for really, really, really good college players and then elite

6:41 level NFL players?

6:42 And then I guess, you know, 10 plus year veteran NFL players.

6:46 Yeah, I think that's a good question because everybody who played like in college or high

6:50 school was like, man, I could do this.

6:52 We all know guys who are like, man, I could do what this guy is doing.

6:55 This guy's getting paid.

6:56 That's mine.

6:57 I could do that.

6:58 It's like, no, no, you couldn't.

6:59 You really can't.

7:00 And if you could, then you're an idiot for not doing it, but I think to me, the biggest

7:05 difference.

7:06 And, you know, when I got drafted in 2004 and I went to my first NFL rookie camp, everybody

7:13 talks about the speed just goes up exponentially.

7:16 And it does because all the guys that you see that are kind of the elite of college, they're

7:22 all on those teams.

7:24 But the biggest difference to me was not even the physical part of it.

7:27 It was the mental part of the game.

7:29 What I mean by that is at this point, when you get into the NFL, it is your occupation.

7:35 It's your job.

7:36 It's how you're feeding your families.

7:37 How you're making a living.

7:38 Like you're going, you go to work like everybody else and that's how you treat it.

7:42 And the physical, the mental part of it, not just dealing with the pressure because when

7:47 you, when money comes, so does pressure because people's livelihoods are depending upon you

7:50 doing the right thing.

7:52 But the capacity and the amount of learning that you have to do and the amount of knowledge

7:58 you have to process very quickly is totally different from college.

8:03 And so you'll see a guy who physically is comparable to anybody in the NFL.

8:08 And for whatever reason, it was the pressure that got to him because now you're playing

8:13 18 games and you're playing Sundays and there's money involved and there's pressure at a different

8:19 level.

8:20 Or that guy's coming in on Wednesday and they're installing first and second down.

8:25 And he's not able to take that information and do it correctly three hours later at practice

8:30 over and over and over again.

8:32 And so you fall by the wayside.

8:34 So physically, I mean, I'll probably, you know, when you're 20, what was I, 22 years

8:39 old, I mean, you're is yoked up.

8:41 I mean, you come, you NFL training can't like ready, and ready.

8:48 And then you realize the biggest way to slow down a fast, strong competitive athlete is

8:55 to make them think.

8:57 And if you can't process quickly enough, all your muscles, all your speed, it don't matter

9:00 because you don't know what to do.

9:03 I think that's right, because you see some of these guys that just disappear when they

9:06 get to the league.

9:07 And it was like, man, they were just carving up, you know, SEC and big 12 and big 10 defenses.

9:12 And then it's like, well, when you have a guy, a quarterback, like a Tom Brady who you have

9:16 some experience with or a Peyton Manning or a Drew Brees or Dan Marino, it's like the

9:21 little things that they do at the line is going to make you think for a half a second

9:25 longer.

9:26 And then maybe you're out of position for a half a second and then West Welker's open

9:30 now.

9:31 That's just something that's just a lot different.

9:33 So I guess for you, obviously Bill Belichick was your coach for, I guess, the majority

9:37 of your career.

9:38 And again, we don't really know what that guy looks like.

9:40 We just know he's, you know, brooding on the sideline and looking like a homeless guy with

9:44 his T-shirts and his hoodies and all that.

9:46 But does a hard unforgiving coach like that make it better for a young player that's trying

9:55 to get the mental side ready to go while keeping the physical side ready?

9:59 Or is it better maybe to have kind of a guy that's a little bit more relaxed, a little

10:03 bit more, you know, again, and bell checks got the rings to prove otherwise.

10:07 But what do you think for like that young player trying to make more of that mental transition?

10:12 You know, good coaches become what they need to be for their players and good coaches are

10:17 able to decipher.

10:18 Okay, this guy needs a loving hand of correction.

10:23 This guy needs for me to put him on Front Street on blast and embarrass him.

10:27 And I get the best out of him, you know, and, and Bill was, is the latter, like he calls

10:33 you out.

10:34 There's a lot of accountability.

10:36 Everybody from the, you know, the last man on the roster to Tom Brady is how he'll, he'll

10:40 to the same standards, like he will embarrass you in front of your peers.

10:44 I've been embarrassed by him in front of my peers and I didn't like it very much.

10:49 But he has a way of bringing the most out of his teams, even if you don't like him like

10:56 to be honest with me, Kyle, I, I didn't like Bill for a lot of my career, but I respected

11:01 him.

11:02 Yeah.

11:03 I respect him because of the standard that he kept.

11:05 And when I left New England and saw how it was done elsewhere, I even respected him

11:09 more because it's very difficult to be successful once is even harder to be successful multiple

11:15 times because complacency sets in and he was able to do that.

11:20 But for the young player, look, it all depends on, it depends on the player being coachable,

11:26 but also depends on the coach, understanding how that player best needs to be coach.

11:30 So the other thing to our, to the previous question about, you know, what happens to

11:34 some players when they go to the league, a lot of it depends on what situation you get

11:39 drafted or picked up into.

11:41 I mean, you can have a guy who, I mean, let's take Tom Brady for example, we don't know

11:45 who he is if Drew bless so doesn't get hurt.

11:47 Now that was an accident that happened, but my point is he's in a place where they've,

11:52 they've got a good defense, they've got a good offense, they've got coaches that can

11:57 nurture him and teach him.

11:59 And then you see some guys, I may go to another place where they're the best, you know, in

12:03 college, but they get to an organization that is not built right from top to bottom.

12:07 It's a mess and it's just a bad situation for them to develop as a young player.

12:12 And therefore you don't ever see them be successful.

12:15 That's a great point because, I mean, you look at an Aaron Rodgers being behind Brett

12:19 Favre for years and years and years before he was a starter.

12:22 And within a few years, he went to Super Bowl.

12:25 Look at Johnny Manziel.

12:26 Now the guys had some, some mental struggles and, but let's say he was, he ended up on

12:31 the Patriots, or let's say he ended up on, on another team, like, let's say he ended

12:35 up on the Colts and Peyton Manning had gotten hurt as opposed to going to the Browns.

12:39 Um, but it's also a really good point about coaches, because I know there are a lot of

12:43 guys out here that have their kids and in team sports and all that and coaches will,

12:47 if they're good, they're not going to apply their style to every situation.

12:52 You know, there was a kid in college that I went to high school with and he was on my,

12:57 my college basketball team.

12:58 I wasn't on the team.

12:59 He was on the team.

13:00 And I remember mentioning to the coach, Hey coach, you're going to have to get this kid

13:03 mad because when he's mad, he plays better because otherwise he was, he was a big body,

13:08 but he was kind of soft, but he, when he was mad, he turned into like the incredible

13:12 Hulk and played better, whereas other guys, if they play mad, they'll brick every shot

13:16 that they ever take.

13:17 But something that you said, whenever talked about respect and liking, um, I don't know

13:21 why this came to mind, but we were so concerned in modern society and I don't want to get

13:25 too far off into the philosophical, we're so concerned about everyone liking us and

13:30 we're not as concerned about them respecting us.

13:31 Like I've thought about before, like, I'm not a fan of Barack Obama, uh, but you know,

13:36 I disagree with him politically on just about everything, but if I were the same room with

13:40 him and I had the chance to meet him, I would go up to him.

13:42 I would shake his hand.

13:43 I would say, hello, Mr, uh, president, thank you so much for being here and thank you for

13:47 serving our country.

13:48 Now, if he wanted to have a policy discussion, you know, get the fireworks out.

13:52 It's going to, it's going to be a lot of fun, but I respect the office.

13:55 I respect the man, even though, you know, I have some misgivings, talk to me, I guess

13:59 a little bit about that because you've got a bunch of kids, you got a whole gang of kids

14:02 at your house.

14:03 Like what is it?

14:04 Seven 18, 19, 20 now, like you got so many kids.

14:07 How are you going to teach these kids to respect authority figures, even if they don't like

14:11 them?

14:12 Yeah.

14:13 Well, not quite 18 or 19, but we do have seven.

14:17 It sounds like 18 or 19 sometimes in our house because this list on many of them, seven kids

14:23 ages 14 down to four and the last two are identical twin boys.

14:28 They're four years old.

14:29 We, we jokingly call them typhoon and tornado because they're just like all boy all the

14:34 time.

14:35 We go crazy, but we, we, we teach our kids, you know, when it comes to, to respect and

14:42 honoring authority.

14:43 I mean, it's not our, our idea.

14:46 I mean, we're getting that from our parents.

14:48 We're getting that from the prescription that we see in Scripture, just the idea of honoring

14:53 authority.

14:54 Even when you think about, you know, Romans 13 and how we honor the government, whether

14:57 we agree with the government or not, they are in a place of authority over us.

15:01 And so it's important for our children to know that support, it's important for them

15:04 to see us, um, subject ourselves and humble ourselves to authority because it's not that

15:10 we as parents get to do whatever the heck we want to do.

15:13 It's like, no, we are submitting ourselves to God.

15:17 We're submitting ourselves to the authorities that are putting our life where there, where

15:20 there's a coach.

15:21 Look, there are times playing football where I really didn't like my coach, whoever that

15:27 coach was.

15:28 And I really didn't agree with my coach.

15:30 Now, it doesn't mean you don't say anything to them, but there is a way that you go about

15:34 um, respectfully disagreeing with within authority figure, even if it's the president, whether

15:40 you like Trump or whether you like Barack Obama, it really, it really doesn't, it doesn't

15:44 matter.

15:45 You can disagree with them, but there's a certain way that we honor the Lord in the way that

15:49 we speak to those who are in places of authority while still holding them accountable.

15:54 I mean, if they're out of line, then of course they need to be held accountable as well.

15:59 I agree with that.

16:00 And you know, I have two young boys, three year old and a one year old.

16:03 And so those are going to be some of those discussions where I wasn't sat down and taught

16:08 those things.

16:09 I more saw it modeled.

16:10 I saw respect modeled like, Hey, we, you know, chivalry, we hold the door open for ladies

16:15 like we, we stand up when they come to the table, like little things like that, that we're

16:18 maybe not getting in modern culture or modern entertainment or something like that.

16:22 Last thing on football before we move off to everything else, you know, I just mentioned

16:25 I have two young boys and I've said before, in my community, we have every single sport

16:31 that you could possibly want to play available, including, you know, ice hockey, including,

16:35 you know, pickleball, we, we have everything.

16:37 The one sport I've told people, I'm like, I'm not going to let my kids play football.

16:41 All my buddies that played football, the head and neck injuries that they've suffered,

16:45 all the data that's coming out about high school kids, concussions, and then obviously

16:49 carrying on into college and the pros, what's your opinion on that?

16:53 Because obviously you've built a pretty nice life for yourself and your family based on

16:56 your physical and athletic prowess and, you know, I don't, I don't have your chart in

17:00 front of me with your brain scan, but it's like, you know, are there concerns there with

17:04 the Watson boys following a dad's footsteps?

17:07 Well, first off, I would say bravo for you for making a decision that you want to make

17:11 about your, your kids and what they're going to do and sticking to it.

17:14 I mean, I, people ask me that all the time, you know, you played football for 20, I mean,

17:18 I played football for 20 something years in total.

17:22 And you know, would you let your boys play?

17:25 I say, yes, I'll let them play.

17:27 They've got to be a little bit older.

17:28 I'm not letting them play tackle football, you know, in PWE and stuff like that.

17:31 That's just my preference.

17:33 I don't begrudge any other parent for, for doing something different, but I would rather

17:38 them not play.

17:39 Look, if they could go play baseball, if they could go own a baseball team or own a football

17:43 team or they're a player, I told him I said the other day he loves football my 10 year

17:47 old.

17:48 I mean, he's all in the football call 100% and I said, you know, if you don't play, there

17:52 are also other occupations in football.

17:56 I mean, there's accountants, there's lawyers, I mean, there's people who, there's, there's

18:00 chefs.

18:01 I mean, there's, there's, there's contract negotiators, there's agents.

18:03 I mean, there's a lot of other things you can do within the game, but as far as playing

18:07 to be quite honest, I worry about it.

18:09 I had several concussions.

18:11 I had seven while I was playing the NFL.

18:13 I had, I had something in a college and I've had a bunch of orthopedic injuries.

18:18 I mean, if you looked at my chart right now, now it's all digital, but back before with

18:21 digital, I played actually my career was long enough to play when carry around your chart.

18:26 And now it was like on a little disc, but every time I would go, the beginning of a season

18:30 or I'll go to a new team, they would be like, golly, how are you still walking with all

18:33 these injuries that you've had?

18:35 And so as I look at my boys, I'll say this, the number one thing, whether they play football

18:40 or not, my wife, person, and I will decide when that happens, then ultimately I'm not

18:45 going to prohibit them from playing.

18:48 But what I don't want to know, what I would never want is for them to play simply because

18:53 daddy played and because they think that I am going to approve of them as my children

19:01 because they walked in my footsteps.

19:03 And I want them, and we talk about this a lot, like they have value regardless if they play

19:08 football or not.

19:09 By simplifying that you're my son, I'm not going to love you anymore or less because

19:12 you're going there and I'm going to pray for you differently and probably more if you're

19:17 playing, but that won't ever change.

19:19 Well, that's a good word just because, you know, I do jujitsu, I've been doing jujitsu

19:24 for five or six years now.

19:25 I want to try that.

19:28 You haven't done it before?

19:29 I have not, but I hear great things about it.

19:31 And I'm like, I want to learn some martial art because my kids are going to try me one

19:35 day and I want to be able to just break them down when I'm old and I don't have any muscles

19:39 anymore.

19:40 Okay, all right.

19:41 So this is what we're going to do.

19:42 You and I are going to train together because I need to get a hold of you before you know

19:45 anything and so like, I'll roll you up, but I just got to tell you, nothing in my life

19:50 Benjamin has been harder than jujitsu mentally and physically because you're going to walk

19:55 in there because because we had a guy that came in our gym.

19:59 He played at Oklahoma State, he bounced around the NFL a little bit.

20:03 And then he came to jujitsu and when he had when he was, I think he was on the packers

20:08 practice squad, he was like 250 pound linebacker, right?

20:11 As, as yoked as yoked can get, and he comes in, he's getting smashed by dudes that weigh

20:16 150 pounds and he can't do anything about it and it doesn't make sense.

20:21 And that gives you a dividing line Benjamin to where it's like, okay, I'm either going

20:25 to figure out what this is.

20:26 So this doesn't happen to me again, or I'm going to retreat to my ego and say, oh, little

20:32 nerdy kid just got lucky and I'm just going to go walk around pretending like I'm dangerous.

20:37 But the level of grit and resilience that you get from something like jujitsu, especially

20:41 with the high quality jujitsu now in the country, it's on another level.

20:44 We'll talk more about that.

20:45 But my boys are, they see me leave my three year old nose when dad leaves to go to jujitsu,

20:51 he doesn't know what that is.

20:52 But I'm not going to give my son any more extra consideration as my son if he decides

20:57 to do jujitsu because in our house, our boys have to play sports.

21:02 We're not going to choose their sports for them, but we want them to play team sports

21:06 and we want them to play individual sports.

21:07 Well, in terms of individual sports, you're basically like wrestling, jujitsu, tennis.

21:12 That's about all you got.

21:13 But we want them to know what it's like to depend on themselves and we want them to

21:17 know what it's like to depend on themselves within the higher unit of a team that's kind

21:21 of working together.

21:23 But that's very interesting that you want to do jujitsu because I got to tell you, like

21:27 if you learn how to not use your muscles and turn off your athleticism and just do the

21:31 technique, it is shocking how easily you can control another human being that doesn't

21:35 know what they're doing.

21:36 It is absolutely shocking.

21:37 So we'll work that out.

21:38 But as we get into the more serious side of our interview today, you're a Christian and

21:43 you're pro life.

21:45 That's a big thing about you.

21:46 That's one of the biggest things that someone could say about you other than the fact that

21:49 you have a relationship with football.

21:52 But Christian and pro life should always go together, but unfortunately they don't always

21:56 do that and we'll get more into that in this conversation.

21:59 But if you would just give us the 30,000 foot overview of how you became a Christian,

22:04 but then specifically why you're so outspoken about the subject of life because a lot of

22:09 Christians aren't that.

22:11 So go.

22:12 Yeah.

22:13 Yeah.

22:14 Well, I became a Christian at a pretty young age.

22:16 My father actually led me to the law when I was probably about five or six years old.

22:20 And that's when I first, that's when the Holy Spirit called me and through repentance

22:24 of faith, I put my faith in trust and Jesus Christ at a very young age and obviously grown

22:30 a lot since then.

22:31 But as the Bible says, that's when eternal life started.

22:33 All life is knowing God and Jesus, who he sent.

22:36 And so that's when eternal life began for me.

22:39 And my father and my mother are both believers, but they would always tell us that, you know,

22:44 this is a decision that you have to make when the Spirit calls you, like you don't get any

22:48 family credit, you know, getting into heaven just because we just because we're believers.

22:54 Yeah.

22:55 God doesn't have grandchildren.

22:56 Exactly.

22:57 Right.

22:58 This is, this is between you and the Lord.

22:59 So that's when I first came to know the Lord and as far as the pro-life stuff goes, it's

23:04 really weird because, you know, growing up in my family, I don't really recall the term

23:11 pro-life being used a lot, although it was a quote unquote pro-life household.

23:15 I do remember, you know, you know, supporting my father's a pastor now back then, he was

23:21 still involved in ministry.

23:22 And I remember that being, you know, a part of life growing up, but not the political

23:28 pro-life part of it that we kind of experience now when we say that there were a pro-life.

23:34 And then for me, I think that some of my earliest recollections of understanding the impact

23:41 of abortion, a lot of times had to do with the black community and it had to do with

23:48 hearing about these statistics about black women and black children.

23:53 And this is back in high school and just kind of thinking those things over.

23:57 And then fast forwarding up until we had our first child and our first child, her name

24:02 was Grace.

24:03 In 2009, we went to see a 3D/4D ultrasound.

24:06 So you know what this is when you've had, you know, a baby looks like a clay figure,

24:11 but you can really actually see the child.

24:14 And we left there and my wife said, you know, I would love to offer this service for other

24:18 women at some point in our life.

24:21 We didn't know what that was going to look like.

24:23 About eight years later, eight years in the league later, I was playing for the Baltimore

24:26 Ravens.

24:28 And two organizations were doing this sort of ultrasound program where you could actually

24:35 support or purchase ultrasounds for pregnancy resource centers.

24:38 And my wife goes, let's do it.

24:40 So we ended up doing that.

24:41 We purchased an ultrasound in Baltimore, Maryland at a pregnancy resource center there.

24:47 When to go see it.

24:48 And then we started doing that in different places where we've either, you know, lived

24:51 or played or even in my hometown in South Carolina.

24:54 And so it comes that when you're in the NFL and you purchase an ultrasound for a PRC,

25:00 it's like everybody starts talking about, you know, good, bad or different.

25:04 It makes news and that was never, that was never the plan.

25:07 And so I always say like there was no point in time where I just said, you know, I'm pro

25:11 life.

25:12 I believe this.

25:13 I've always believed that people were made an image of God.

25:15 I've always believed that human beings had value outside of any other created being that

25:24 walks the face of the other human beings are different and that there's value, whether

25:28 you are at any at the stage of life of fertilization or whether you're in your middle age of life

25:33 or whether you're at the end of life, I always believe that I believe that people have value

25:37 no matter their ethnicity or background of those sorts of things.

25:41 And that always the issue of justice and fighting for justice for vulnerable people, whether

25:47 that be the preborn or whether it comes to racial injustice in America or even in trafficking.

25:53 My wife and I do some stuff with the organization that does a lot with sex trafficking of children.

25:58 And I see it as a justice issue.

25:59 And so my arm ramp was was not, you know, I want to be involved in pro life because of

26:06 the necessary politics of it, although they're all politics involved because we live in America.

26:11 It was more about justice and about defending the voiceless and defending a group of people

26:17 that are vulnerable.

26:20 So the interesting thing about why you were talking is I guess I never really thought

26:24 about that.

26:25 I don't remember hearing pro life ever used in our household.

26:30 And even before I was a Christian, it's almost like I believed in the value of human life

26:35 before I knew that we were made in the image of God, I guess.

26:38 So I believed in the value of human life before I knew what the amago day is that they were

26:42 made in his image.

26:43 And so it would make sense.

26:45 You know, even an atheist, it's like, Oh, well, you know, of course you want your species

26:49 to propagate.

26:50 But then obviously if you're a believer in God, you know, it goes much, much deeper than

26:53 that.

26:54 And so I and then with last year happening, obviously last summer, Roe v. Wade and Planned

27:00 Parenthood v. Casey go the way the trash bin and those were overturned.

27:04 And that was a big moment for our country and we're still unraveling exactly what that,

27:10 the ramifications of that are I'm I'm a little bit, not a little bit.

27:14 I'm quite a bit disappointed in a lot of supposedly pro life and Republican politicians coming

27:19 out and being a lot squish here on the issue now.

27:22 It's like, you know, we won, but we need to do more and now it's like, Oh, we don't want

27:26 to make anyone mad.

27:27 So it's it's kind of a weird milieu that we're in right now Benjamin and we'll we'll get more

27:31 into that here when we get into the book.

27:32 But just generically, when Roe v. Wade was and you go over this in the book, but when

27:37 Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey Rover turn last summer, how did you feel like

27:42 in your gut?

27:43 Cause I remember being on a lawn mower, getting a call from a buddy saying it's overturned,

27:48 it's overturned.

27:49 Oh my gosh, it's overturned.

27:50 And I come running up here to this studio.

27:51 I'm covered in dirt and I've got like a camo shirt on and I just record an episode and

27:55 I'm in tears because I'm so shocked and I'm so happy and it was just like, it was overwhelming.

28:00 I'll never forget that.

28:01 But what was it like for you in the Watson how household?

28:04 I wasn't I wasn't on a lawn mower.

28:07 I was shot nonetheless.

28:08 I think I think I was even more shocked and emotional when the leak came out.

28:14 So if you remember the leak came out like a few months before that this was going to

28:18 happen.

28:19 And I was, you know, it was breathtaking to hear that this could be a possibility.

28:24 And I think that's when I had most of my, you know, the tea, even the tears then.

28:29 And then when it actually happened, I felt kind of just in awe, I think, like, wow, this

28:36 actually happened.

28:37 I mean, you know, as far as being involved in the quote unquote pro life movement for

28:41 the last, you know, actively five, you know, 67 years as far as even working with a, you

28:47 know, a pro life organization, human coalition.

28:51 You meet so many people who have been on the front lines in different capacities for the

28:54 last 50 years.

28:55 I mean, people who have been in resource centers, people in medicine, people in academia, people

28:59 in politics, I mean, people in the faith community, Catholic process, it doesn't matter.

29:04 And thinking about all the work that they've done.

29:06 But I remember we were about to fly out to Dallas to speak at any event.

29:10 My wife and I, when the text message started coming in.

29:13 And I remember thinking, are we ready for this?

29:17 Like, what's next?

29:20 Because I saw the very real fear and anger from, from abortion proponents.

29:27 I saw the fear of many women who, it was a genuine fear thinking that, you know, something

29:33 was being taken away from them.

29:34 Because in essence, it was we have to, we have to honor that.

29:37 Those are very real feelings from them.

29:40 And I knew that the battle over abortion was not over by any stretch of the imagination.

29:47 I knew that it, in many ways, just begun.

29:50 Like, in many ways, there was a new, a new fight for life had really just begun.

29:53 And I felt like, okay, our pro life is really ready for this.

29:58 And that's not to chastise any of us.

30:01 That's just more of a challenge saying that, okay, it might look a little bit different

30:04 now than it did before, because, quite frankly, the reasons why women were going to get abortions,

30:10 whatever they may be, are still very, very real, whether Roe is here or whether Roe is

30:15 not.

30:16 Now, that's not to say that we don't celebrate Roe being overturned, because yes, I believe

30:19 that law influences culture, culture influences law, but a lot of times law influences culture.

30:24 So when you overturn something like that, the trickle down effect, not only this year,

30:29 but next year, next year, next year is the norm and the accepted norm for us and for our

30:34 children is not going to be a default to abortion.

30:36 And that's a good thing.

30:38 But outside of that, it's imperative that, you know, people in pro life circles, you mentioned

30:43 politicians who got squishy, as you said, and who it seemed like they were just doing

30:47 it for the vote.

30:48 They were just doing it because it was a popular thing to do.

30:51 Is that really your conviction?

30:52 Because right now, we need you now more than ever to stay firm in the stances that you've

30:57 taken and not only that to be leaders where the heat is being turned up tremendously

31:04 on individuals, corporations, organizations, churches.

31:08 The question was, I felt like, you know, are we ready for what's next?

31:11 Yeah, you use the word chastisement there earlier.

31:14 I'm okay with chastising people that are getting a little squishy right now that are because

31:19 what I've said before is that I don't believe that Donald J. Trump is pro life in his heart,

31:25 but I do know that he legislated and governed in a way that was pro life.

31:29 And so it's like, which one do you want if you only get one or the other?

31:33 It's like, you obviously want the guy that's going to legislate that way.

31:35 But look where we are now, he's currently attacking governor DeSantis, who's not even

31:40 in the race yet, from the left of the abortion issue, saying that a six week ban is a little

31:46 bit too intense.

31:47 And so it's like, there's this, there's this dichotomy there.

31:50 There's certainly this tension, but that all gets into the new book that is out now, guys,

31:54 if you were listening to this, it is in the show, no, she can go and pick up a copy.

31:57 It's called the new fight for life, row race and a pro life commitment to justice.

32:01 So just finished this a couple of weeks ago.

32:05 It's on 10 Dale.

32:06 I'm so happy that they were able to send this to me and that we were able to get this

32:08 all scheduled up.

32:09 But in your own words, let's just go again, 30,000 foot view.

32:13 What is this book about?

32:15 Why did you write it?

32:16 And then we'll start digging in.

32:17 Yeah, the book is about what's next for the pro life movement June 24th, 2022, as we talked

32:22 about, Roe v. Wade was overturned.

32:26 But we're a year out from Roe v. Wade being overturned.

32:29 And I believe, and I, what I see is honestly Kyle, a bit of apathy, and I see a bit of

32:37 apathy.

32:38 A lot of that.

32:39 Yeah.

32:40 Yeah.

32:41 You've been really pleased.

32:42 I've seen a lot of apathy in the whole life movement, meaning so many feel like the battle

32:47 is over.

32:48 So many feel like lives are being saved and they are.

32:52 And so many feel like, okay, now it's time to retreat because the heat is being turned

32:55 up.

32:56 And what I wanted to do was to provide a blueprint or a game plan to encourage the pro life movement

33:00 to move forward in a way that might seem different than before.

33:03 Because as you mentioned, legislation is one thing.

33:06 Making abortion both unthinkable and unnecessary is something totally different.

33:11 And so the reason why I wrote the book I mentioned before, I've been working with an organization,

33:17 human coalition, and we provide direct services for pregnant women, we also involved in state

33:24 local federal legislation when it comes to life.

33:26 And also outside of that, whether it's within churches or pregnancy resource centers or

33:31 different organizations, I've heard this statistic get thrown out a lot about black women.

33:38 And it resonated with me as a black man, with a black mother, with black children, with

33:42 a black wife, three to four times more likely to have abortions than their white counterparts.

33:50 And the reason why I wanted to speak into this, because I always ask the next question, which

33:55 is why, which I usually never hear people say, Kyle, I never hear people say, why is that?

33:59 And so to me, I'm thinking, okay, it's either because black folks like killing their kids

34:05 more than anybody else.

34:07 And if that's what you believe, be proud and say it.

34:10 We could talk about that.

34:11 You know what I mean?

34:12 That may be it, or is it that because of so much that has happened now currently and in

34:20 the past, as we see with so many other outcomes in the black community, that programs, policies,

34:26 discriminatory issues, events that have happened over the course of history from yesterday backwards

34:32 have created a group of people that is more vulnerable to the stain of abortion, because

34:37 a lot of times we point the finger at Planned Parenthood, which we should.

34:41 And we say that those folks are racist, which they've admitted by distancing themselves

34:47 from eugenics and Margaret Sanger, they've admitted those things.

34:51 But a lot of times, what we as a pro-life movement fail to identify, we fail to unpack

34:55 probably because it's painful for us to talk about is, how does the experience of the descendants

35:00 of enslaved people in this country?

35:03 How does that make them a prime target for a Planned Parenthood to be able to pray on?

35:09 And so what I tried to do in the book was to say, okay, it's a pro-life movement.

35:13 This is a sore spot for us.

35:15 This is a spot of a lot of connectivity where there's a lot of abortion in this area.

35:22 How do we address that person and that group, while also addressing everyone else, but specifically

35:28 when I talk about race and pro-life movement to justice, how do we shift our moments and

35:33 our thinking on justice to turn off the faucet to abortion?

35:39 30,000 foot.

35:40 That's where we are because I believe that right now when it comes to the pro-life movement

35:44 a year after a row, we're just scratching the surface.

35:47 And when it comes to the numbers of babies being aborted, we've got the abortion pill

35:53 on the rise, 60 to 70%, possibly 80 in the next couple of years is going to be the abortion

35:58 pill.

36:00 The politics of it, as you mentioned before, the issues are still there.

36:04 We as a pro-life movement have a great opportunity not only to address those things but also

36:08 think this, Kyle, that people on the other side of this debate want to hear us speak

36:13 in ways that are holistic, that are taken out of the political realm, and more speak

36:19 to compassion and speak to people's hearts.

36:21 I think there are some people on the fence that are also waiting to see if this pro-life

36:25 movement really real, do they really care?

36:27 Not that we have to prove ourselves to everybody, but what I'm saying is that there's an opportunity

36:30 here to build bridges.

36:34 So I appreciate you giving me the overview of that.

36:38 And guys, this is probably a good time to mention.

36:41 We can't even get into a quarter of the stuff that's in this book in our time today.

36:45 I'm just really trying to go over some of those things.

36:47 And even as you and I chatted off air, there are some things that we have significant agreement

36:52 on, significant disagreement on, there's things in the middle that just doesn't really matter

36:56 that much.

36:57 So let's go and go into deep water right here from the beginning, because it goes into something

37:01 that you brought up in the book, because there was something about how you framed the subject

37:05 of abortion amongst the black population in the United States that it was a little bit

37:10 confusing to me, and I just need a little bit more clarification on, because the way you

37:14 seem to describe it was that abortion was happening to black women in this country.

37:21 Like there were quotes like abortion disproportionately affects the black community, abortion disproportionately

37:27 impacts black women, and obviously to my knowledge, I don't think there are vans of people going

37:33 around looking for pregnant black women to throw them into Planned Parenthood for them

37:36 to kill their babies.

37:37 And I think this does bleed into the personal responsibility part of the discussion, which

37:42 also goes into how the church can get involved, and I want to get there as well.

37:48 And almost 100% of the cases women are having consensual unprotected sex with men, and that's

37:54 how they get pregnant.

37:56 And I guess there's a lot of choices that go into what's happening with the abortion.

38:02 Like they have to decide that they're not going to have, not going to save themselves

38:07 for marriage.

38:08 They have to choose to be sexually active.

38:09 They have to choose to have sexual individual men, they have to choose to have unprotected

38:13 sex.

38:14 They have to choose to not care for the child.

38:16 They have to choose that they're going to get an abortion, choose which abortion facility,

38:19 choose to go there, choose to give them money.

38:21 There's so many choices that that go along the way before we even get get to the baby

38:27 being alive outside the womb.

38:30 So talk to me a little bit more about that because as I was reading through it, the whole

38:33 time I was like, it was almost like you were talking about it like this was a thing that

38:37 happened to them like they were being attacked by abortion as opposed to choosing it.

38:41 If that makes sense.

38:42 Yeah, well, I do say in the book that there is choice, and I believe that everybody has

38:47 a choice in what they do.

38:51 Ironically, I'm one of the people that believe in personal responsibility and the fact that

38:55 circumstances can impact your personal responsibility and your personal responsibility.

38:58 Yeah.

38:59 I mean, we see that in so many situations that happen every single day where you're influenced

39:05 to make certain choices or you have an availability to make certain choices because of your circumstances

39:10 while still realizing that you still have consequences for your actions.

39:14 And so when it comes to the issue of abortion, I would also say that there is a bit of targeting.

39:22 And you mentioned there's nobody riding around on a bus telling black women to get abortion.

39:25 I don't know if you've been on the internet.

39:27 I don't know if you've driven down the highways in Atlanta on I-85 because I've seen billboards

39:32 that say that abortion impacts or harms black and brown women the most.

39:37 That is targeting directly at a certain people group telling them that they need abortion.

39:41 Well, Benjamin, to your point earlier, where was Margaret Sanger in Planned Parenthood

39:45 putting abortion clinics when they were doing their kind of low-key eugenicist movement,

39:52 they weren't putting it in affluent areas, they were putting in areas where there were

39:56 a lot of people of color and not people of means.

39:59 And so, yeah, I'm certainly sensitive to that.

40:01 Well, Margaret Sanger, I mean, she was never a proponent of abortion.

40:05 She was with birth control and our abortion was introduced to what became Planned Parenthood

40:08 by Alan Gootmark or by a man.

40:10 So I know we're going to talk about men at some point because all of the men are listening.

40:13 So men have a big role in this too.

40:16 But my point is that there is advertising dollars that are specifically directed at a

40:24 certain demographic that are directed at black people.

40:27 And that doesn't make anybody do anything just because I show you advertising about Pepsi

40:32 or Coca-Cola, whichever floats your boat, it doesn't mean that you have to go do that.

40:36 What I'm saying is there's ample opportunity.

40:39 And also, when you think about the school system and how Planned Parenthood has infiltrated

40:43 our school systems, and this goes to everybody, this isn't just black kids or white kids

40:47 or anybody in between, there is curriculum that Planned Parenthood be the first trusted

40:54 name that young women turn to whenever there is anything you have to do with women's health,

41:01 that's a legitimate women's health concern, anything you have to do with abortion, all

41:03 those sorts of things.

41:04 And so they have made themselves and cosied themselves up to black women, Hispanic women,

41:11 but specifically black women, so that they're that trusted partner, while we can still say

41:18 that, look, you have a responsibility and you don't have to do anything to your point.

41:23 You don't have to have sex, none of us do, but studies show that everybody has sex at

41:26 about the same rate.

41:28 You don't have to have sex, you don't have to do that.

41:31 You can use birth control, you can do that.

41:34 So I agree with you there that there's responsibility, but what I'm pushing and what I'm challenging

41:40 the pro-life community is to look at is all these, I would say, ancillary that are directly

41:49 related issues and entities that are feeding into the issue of abortion.

41:56 Because where I believe we fall short many times is when we isolate the decision to abort

42:04 and take it out of the context of someone's entire life.

42:09 And that's where I think pro-lifers can do better, even if we're just listening and

42:14 understanding.

42:17 That's one thing where I typically hate it when people are like, I just want to have

42:20 a conversation, I just want to listen, but there are things that we need to fill in the

42:24 gaps where you can be literally, forgive the pun, black and white on particular things,

42:29 have no movement, be binary in your decision-making, but inform that with a little bit more context

42:35 to what's actually happening with people.

42:36 And the thing is, if you can be black and white on killing children, and I'm black and

42:43 white on that, on killing people, because we say they are people, they're pre-born people,

42:50 we can be black and white on killing pre-born people no matter what your circumstance is,

42:55 we are black and white on that.

42:57 And we can also say at the same time, I understand that your situation may be a little bit different

43:04 than somebody else's in these areas.

43:07 And how can I or how can we address those areas and be open to seeing how those issues

43:15 may impact your decision here?

43:17 Well, never sacrificing conviction.

43:21 You don't sacrifice conviction, even if you have compassion.

43:24 And what happens too often for all of us, we're all prone to do this in our own circles

43:29 and our own tribes, is to separate the two and say, "If I'm having compassion for that

43:34 person, I am absolving them of guilt."

43:38 And no, that's not what we're doing.

43:40 I'm trying to present both, trying to create understanding, while also saying no, you have

43:45 a decision to make, and I'm going to agree with the decision at all.

43:49 Yeah, I think that's a good distinction because I think people, if you come towards the center

43:55 on any type of, I guess the way that I've said it before, like with the trans issue,

44:00 there's no middle ground on the trans issue, you're either forward or against it, but that

44:04 doesn't mean you have to completely shut out conversation and talking to people about where

44:08 they are.

44:09 But I think this comes back around to the narrative of sex in the home and in the church.

44:15 There's a short quote from your book.

44:16 It says this, "That's why I believe it's vital that we start having more authentic God-honoring

44:21 conversations about sex, both at home and in the church."

44:25 Now, obviously, this is an oversimplification, but I see the pro-life pro-choice issue as

44:33 not an abortion issue, it's a gospel issue, because if you really believe that we are

44:39 made in the image of God and that Jesus was sent here by His Father to be the propitiation

44:43 for our sins, and that's how we're going to be able to get to the afterlife and be in

44:47 God's presence, man, killing an image bearer of God doesn't really end up on your menu

44:52 that much, but I mean, I didn't grow up in a Christian household, I grew up in Oklahoma,

44:58 so we were Christians because we were born in Oklahoma, but we didn't have these God-honoring

45:02 conversations about sex, so frankly, Benjamin, I don't know what those look like for children,

45:07 and I don't know what you and your wife are doing in your home, but talk to me a little

45:10 bit more about how those conversations in the home and in church can be well upstream

45:17 of a woman's decision to kill her child.

45:19 Yeah.

45:20 Well, I was born in Virginia, the Commonwealth, so we have our own Virginia pride, but it

45:26 ain't nothing like Oklahoma, Texas pride.

45:28 If you read the narrative of Scripture, and you go cover to cover, I would venture to

45:37 say that outside of the Holy Spirit, sex is probably the most powerful influence that

45:44 we see in Scripture.

45:45 Why do I say that?

45:46 Well, when I look at people like David and Beth Sheba, or when I look at Abraham and

45:50 Sarah and him sleeping with Hagar to make God's promise come through to fruition when I look

45:57 at rape and incest in Scripture, when I look at all the rules that God had to make about

46:02 how to differentiate His people, the Israelites from the surrounding cultures because of the

46:08 sexual idolatry and hedonism that they were involved in, the power of, when I look at

46:15 my own life and our own life and the powers of our hormones and sex, sex is that beautiful

46:20 thing that God gave to man, to humankind, but outside of the proper directives and

46:28 distinctives, it creates so much havoc.

46:33 And it still does.

46:36 And part of the issue while we struggle, I believe, in the church specifically to have

46:40 conversations with our kids about sex is because we carry our own sex guilt.

46:45 And so whether you're a believer or not, you remember things that you did, things that you

46:50 thought about, and you really don't want your kids to ask you certain questions.

46:54 Because it wouldn't be very Christian of you to be able to answer these questions, but

46:57 you know what?

46:58 Your kids are going to have to deal with some of the same decisions and make the same decisions

47:01 that you made.

47:02 Heaven forbid they make the same decision when you could have prevented them from making

47:05 a decision that would ruin their lives in many ways.

47:09 And so answering your question, you know, how do we have those conversations?

47:12 We need parents.

47:13 We need men, honestly.

47:15 And I think a lot of this lies on men because we're the ones that don't like to talk about

47:18 it the most.

47:20 We have to be willing to be direct and honest with our kids, with our mistakes, while still

47:25 appointed them to a standard that is not daddy, but a standard, as you mentioned, that is laid

47:30 out in the words of Scripture.

47:33 Because there is a prescription to have healthy sex lives, there's a prescription in Scripture

47:39 to have a healthy sexual legacy and to avoid so much.

47:45 But so often we don't talk about it because it's uncomfortable with our kids, or we just

47:49 we just think, you know, somebody else is going to do it.

47:51 Well, guess what?

47:52 Somebody else is going to do it.

47:53 And I guarantee you they're not going to tell you the right, tell them the right thing.

47:56 Yeah, it's not going to come from a God honoring place.

47:58 And you mentioned the word standards there.

48:00 And it's like, where do standards come from?

48:02 They typically come from the dad, right?

48:04 And the dad holds the hard line of the standards.

48:07 And so if I could wave a magic wand and go back to before you started writing this book,

48:12 I would have like grabbed you by your ears and shaken your head and said, you have to

48:16 talk about this one issue and you have to talk about it a lot.

48:20 But probably the most egregious error of the book is how you don't really talk about rampant

48:26 fatherlessness almost at all in the entire book.

48:30 And again, this is just my opinion.

48:31 You wrote the book, you know what you're doing.

48:33 But aside from you talking about yourself and your family, which I enjoyed because it

48:37 gave us a little peek by in the curtain of how you do life with your wife and your children,

48:41 you hardly mention fathers at all in the book and you focus on the mothers and sometimes

48:48 the children and you spend less than two pages and it was towards the very end of the book,

48:53 even talking about fatherhood and fatherlessness and you know, it's mainly just generic stuff

48:58 to keep the narrative of the chapter going.

49:01 But there was no, what I would have wanted, you know, a full repudiation of men abandoning

49:07 their families, abandoning their communities.

49:10 There was no mention whatsoever of the fatherlessness rate exploding in all communities except Asians

49:17 since the civil rights movement, not just the black community, right?

49:20 Where it went from like 33% to 70% in the white community, it went from 3% to 30% over that

49:26 same time period, a thousand percentage point increase, right?

49:30 And so I guess why didn't you spend more time talking about the scourge of fatherlessness

49:35 because for me, I see a direct correlation between these girls running into the arms

49:41 of these boys that can shave and having sex with them, not having confidence in holding

49:47 their sexuality for their husbands, they're not seeing it modeled, dad's not around or

49:52 dad's a [inaudible], like help me kind of see why that wasn't more of a focus of the book.

49:58 Well, the short answer is because that wasn't the focus of the book.

50:03 The short answer is the focus of the book was centered on justice and on a narrative that

50:08 isn't really talked about as much, although I'm glad you mentioned that I did talk about

50:12 fatherhood and I remember it, you know, even I was speaking, I was speaking, I'm sorry,

50:16 we got a dog and he's, hey, you know, this is a guy's podcast and so, is it at least

50:24 a bulldog?

50:25 Is it a bulldog?

50:26 It's an American bullet.

50:28 Okay, well, see, you could have just lied and it would have been for everybody.

50:31 Well, he's like, he's like 80, he's like 85 pounds, bro, and he's like 11 months old.

50:36 I mean, why are you serious?

50:38 Oh, like he bent the presses.

50:40 I don't know.

50:41 Like he trained somewhere.

50:42 I don't know.

50:43 But anyway, back to fathers.

50:44 I remember I was looking at the March for Life and a couple of years ago, and in my speech,

50:48 I talked a lot about fathers because I believe that when this, that this issue, I believe

50:52 that most all issues that we deal with in our, in our, in the world trace directly back

50:58 to manhood.

50:59 Yeah.

51:00 And I say that because I hate to pick on Adam because we would have done the same thing,

51:05 but you see in Adam, you see all of us, you see an abdication of our responsibility.

51:10 You see us blaming our women, you see us hiding from God.

51:15 You see us doing all those sorts of things that have wreaked havoc in our culture.

51:19 And so manhood is a huge part of that.

51:22 I mean, one of the number one reasons when it comes to a woman having abortion is if

51:26 her father is present.

51:27 And so the purpose of the book is not to deny that or anything.

51:32 I speak, I speak on it and I've spoken on it in length.

51:35 The purpose of this book, however, was to give a new lens, perhaps another perspective

51:41 for the pro-life movement to address abortion, making it unthinkable and unnecessary that

51:47 that many of us haven't drawn correlation with before.

51:52 And so yeah, the fatherhood piece is huge and I've written and talked about that a lot,

51:57 but the short answer for your question, which is a good one, is just that that wasn't the

52:02 crux of my mission in speaking on this.

52:05 Well, Benjamin, you can thank me later for this, but I'm doing you and Tindale a favor.

52:11 That's what your next book is going to be about.

52:13 Okay, your next book is going to be.

52:14 It's already rolling, dude.

52:15 It's already going, but when that time comes, you just send me an autograph copy.

52:22 We'll get you back on here and we'll be good to go.

52:26 So in the book, again, it's not the world's longest book.

52:30 It's, you know, 250 pages or so.

52:32 And so it's not going to be this exhaustive explanation of everything that could potentially

52:36 be done.

52:37 So we have to kind of speak in generalities a little bit, but it seems like, and obviously

52:41 correct me if you would couch it a different way, but throughout the book, you're advocating

52:46 for more government involvement in areas that the government of the United States has already

52:51 proven, frankly, that they suck at fixing and that they actually can make things worse.

52:55 So the government interventions and education have been a failure, wealth inequality, failure,

53:00 race issues, failure, families, abject failure, fatherlessness, which we just talked about.

53:05 They've actually made it substantially worse.

53:08 And so from my perspective, again, this I hate to be generic, but you know, we're just

53:11 kind of stuck with the medium here, but why in the world would anyone in their right mind

53:16 advocate for more government programs that would give the United States government or

53:21 our local governments more of our money and more of our power to fix societal problems

53:27 that they've proven time and time again that they are just flat out and capable of fixing.

53:32 Yeah.

53:33 Well, we're stuck with government, Kyle, we're stuck with them.

53:37 We live in a constitutional republic.

53:40 And so we have to deal with government, whether we like it or not, we're going to pay taxes.

53:45 That's how it was going to work.

53:46 We are going to have certain social services.

53:48 That's how it was going to work.

53:50 And so part of the reimagining process is not to say that government can solve everything

53:55 because I don't believe that they are good at solving everything.

53:59 But I do believe that folks who have the right mind, folks who are pro-life, folks who care

54:05 about pre-born children and women, that we need them to be integral in creating these

54:12 programs and committing to them.

54:14 I wouldn't go as far to say that the government never gets anything right.

54:18 I'm not saying you said that, but there can be a feeling sometimes that the government

54:22 can do nothing right and we don't need the government.

54:24 So I wouldn't say that because there are plenty of things we look at throughout history where

54:29 the government has done something good.

54:31 It has helped people when they needed to be helped and we do need them to be there.

54:35 But I think more importantly, specifically when it comes to, and I talk about this in

54:40 the book, specifically when it comes to black people in this country, the government policies

54:48 have been some of the policies that have hurt black folks the most.

54:52 Sure.

54:53 And that's the example of the GI Bill.

54:55 GI Bill that allowed home ownership for many veterans, many of them not black to build

55:00 wealth in this country.

55:01 And now we look at we have a 10 to 1 wealth gap in this country.

55:04 We can't decouple that government policy that helps some people and say that they had

55:09 nothing to do with the situation and the context by which we see America in this country.

55:14 And so my point and my efforts in the book, part history book, part definitely challenging,

55:22 not going to make you feel good sometimes if you're on one side of the tracks or one

55:27 side of the political spectrum.

55:29 But I try my darndest to cite everything and to give an accurate, I guess, report of history

55:36 and how it impacts the landscape now while still saying going back to our conversation

55:40 about 30 minutes ago that we are responsibility.

55:45 But this is larger than simply telling a young woman, don't don't kill your baby.

55:50 Like, I think we can do more than that as pro life.

55:55 We certainly can.

55:56 We can't do less than that, but we, I would agree, we can do certainly more than that.

56:00 Well, there was another quote in the book that I think maybe speaks to this a little

56:04 bit because we kind of have this modern since Benjamin that if something goes wrong, we

56:10 need the government to fix it.

56:12 Something's going bad.

56:13 The government needs to fix us.

56:14 I feel like I'm in danger.

56:16 The government needs to fix it.

56:18 But here's a short quote from, I believe it was early in the book, as a church, we need

56:22 to become a safe haven, a refuge, a place where the most vulnerable can turn, not just for

56:28 spiritual help, but for emotional material and financial support too.

56:33 I know that there are a lot of churches out there, regardless of size, because I know

56:37 that there are enormous churches that are terrible and enormous churches that are great

56:40 and all the way down to the small ones, it's, you know, they, they come in many shapes and

56:44 sizes and colors and modalities.

56:47 But I feel like, I feel like the church in general has lost the thread where they spend

56:55 a lot more time moralizing and a lot less time ministering.

56:59 And I don't mean spreading of the gospel.

57:01 I mean, actually spending time to get down on one knee in your $1,000 suit and taking

57:09 the hand of a homeless person and saying, not, and not, hey, come with me to my house.

57:14 I'm going to take care of you for the rest of your life necessarily.

57:17 But is there something I can do to pray for you?

57:19 Is there, is there something I can do to be the hands and feet of the Lord in your world

57:23 right now?

57:25 And I think that as America, and I'll get off my personal sermon here in a second, but

57:30 as America becomes more secularized, and we see this in the day to the day to say that

57:35 atheists and agnostics are more politically involved than any other type of group in America,

57:42 it's because politics becomes their religion, wokeness becomes their religion, progressivism

57:47 becomes their religion, whatever it is.

57:49 And the less we depend on the Lord, the more we will depend on daddy government.

57:54 What do you think about that?

57:55 Well, you said a lot there.

57:59 I agree with you as far as the church.

58:02 And even when we think about the early church, when we think about the way, and there's in

58:07 the book of Acts when it talks about the church and the fact that this is within the body,

58:11 this is outside of the body of Christ.

58:13 But at least within the body, it talks about no one being in need.

58:18 And as a matter of fact, two people were killed because they went and sold a field and lied

58:23 about how much money they made and brought it to the apostles, and he said, why are you

58:27 lying about this money that you were supposed to give to the brothers and sisters?

58:31 And so there is Matthew 25, whatever you do for the lease of these, my brothers do for

58:36 me, Jesus is talking about the people in the body of Christ that we should be taking care

58:41 of each other.

58:42 Now, outside of that, clearly, the church has always been those who created schools.

58:49 It was churches that, even in our country, we talk about abolition and creating schools

58:54 for formerly enslaved people.

58:55 It was churches that did those sorts of things.

58:57 It was churches that made hospitals, and it was churches throughout the world who led

59:01 some of the biggest humanitarian campaigns that we see, and so that DNA is still in us.

59:10 And we see it a lot.

59:11 I mean, there are a lot of faith-based organizations in this country that do tremendous work.

59:16 But to your point, we have to remember that.

59:18 What does that look like when it comes to abortion?

59:20 I talk about some of these things.

59:22 It's welcoming these women, four and ten women who have had abortions are inside of our churches.

59:27 And so they are sitting next to us in the pews.

59:30 And I also would like to say that if there's four and ten women, there's probably about

59:34 four and ten men, too, that are coming through our churches.

59:39 And this is a topic, an issue, that most churches do not speak about.

59:44 A recent few research poll came out that says something around less than 10%, or at least

59:49 less than 15% of churchgoers had even heard of sermon when it comes to the issue of abortion.

59:55 And so it's imperative that churches do that, not only offer the physical, tangible needs,

59:59 whether it's helping with adoption or diapers, whatever it is, but just being a place where

1:00:05 people don't feel condemnation, that they feel healing while still holding to a standard.

1:00:12 And politics has become a God.

1:00:15 I don't know if it's always been at this level, but I will say just in my lifetime, look,

1:00:20 I can't speak for what happened for me.

1:00:23 But I can't say it does seem in the last several years there are a lot of cultural wars that

1:00:30 are politically tied, and that has become our savior and has become the banner that we

1:00:37 run under, and there have been churches that have split.

1:00:41 You know them as well as I do, churches that have split over the last presidential elections

1:00:46 and all that sort of stuff.

1:00:48 And I don't believe in John 17 that this is what Jesus was thinking about when he was

1:00:53 praying for us.

1:00:54 Benjamin, I think that we, I love that, but we have to dig down on something that you

1:00:59 mentioned that I can't believe I didn't even think about asking you about it.

1:01:02 So I'm so glad you brought it up.

1:01:05 The fact that churches are not talking about the issue of life.

1:01:09 So I go to a church that I love, there's expository preaching, we stick to the word.

1:01:14 It's not, hey, here's 20 examples from my life.

1:01:17 And here's a few scriptures, I'll sprinkle over the top of it so I can keep my tax exempt

1:01:21 status.

1:01:22 We're preaching the Bible.

1:01:23 But in the first five years I went to this church, the lead pastor maybe talked about

1:01:27 abortion for a grand total of three minutes.

1:01:30 And it was always just kind of like this ad hoc, you know, add on thing that that he would

1:01:35 just kind of mention.

1:01:36 And I actually will go around and speak at churches and I do a presentation called defeating

1:01:41 pro-abortion arguments.

1:01:43 And I get up there and I equip the saints to be able to push back against the darkness

1:01:47 of abortion because most people don't even engage in the discussion about abortion because

1:01:51 they're afraid, well, what if they say this and they don't know what to say back?

1:01:55 And so I say, hey, if someone says, my body, my choice, what do you say in response to

1:02:00 that?

1:02:01 If someone says, oh, you only care about the baby before they're born, what do you say

1:02:03 in response to that?

1:02:05 But so many pastors are scared of the women and their congregations that have had abortions

1:02:10 because they don't want them to feel judged.

1:02:12 But it's like, as you said, they're already there.

1:02:16 And what better explanation of why they need the gospel than the total depravity of their

1:02:21 sin and Benjamin, when I speak at churches, the first words out of my mouth when I talk

1:02:26 about abortion is there is now therefore no condemnation for those that are in Christ

1:02:31 Jesus.

1:02:32 And then I stop talking and then I say, everybody take a deep breath.

1:02:36 We're going to put on our big boy and big girl pants because guess what?

1:02:39 Jesus died for that sin too.

1:02:42 And I just don't know why more pastors of all denominations, all races, all ages, why

1:02:49 are they not talking about this issue, why are they so cowardly?

1:02:52 Yeah.

1:02:53 Part of the reason I think, well, not I think I know is, well, number one, the politics

1:02:59 of it.

1:03:00 That's one because as soon as you open that can of worms, which shouldn't be that way

1:03:04 when it comes to abortion.

1:03:05 And it wasn't always that way.

1:03:06 I mean, when we talk about the history of how pro life and pro choice, even the terminology

1:03:11 came about, you know, you're talking about politics.

1:03:13 You're only talking within the last, you know, 40 or so years of that kind of vernacular

1:03:17 started really getting into the American lexicon.

1:03:20 But when you look at the pastors, many of them are post abortive.

1:03:24 And so abortion is so widespread, is so widespread globally in our country that it impacts so

1:03:35 many different people, even people who are pastors.

1:03:38 And so if you got a pastor that perhaps pay for an abortion or you had a daughter or,

1:03:43 you know, an aunt or a cousin or he actually pushed someone to go get one at some point

1:03:48 in time, is he going to want to talk about those things?

1:03:50 The same conversation that we just had about the sex conversation, I think applies in many

1:03:54 ways to abortion because it's one of those things that you don't want to address because

1:03:58 it's so hurtful and it makes sense that it's hurtful because life is at stake.

1:04:03 Anytime there is life at stake and someone loses life, that hits differently than any

1:04:10 other sort of horrible outcome.

1:04:14 And it impacts what pastors talk about.

1:04:17 And I think because of that, perhaps many don't feel equipped to talk about it.

1:04:22 I recently did a series, it's a six, I love for you to check it out, but it's a six week

1:04:28 series with a group called Stand For Life.

1:04:31 And it's about the image of God, the image of God and people and children, image of God

1:04:34 and women and the elderly and it's six different sessions, it's a free resource.

1:04:41 And we're not trying to tell anybody what to do, but it's a free resource for pastors.

1:04:44 There's a curriculum there that talks about the image of God and then there are six different

1:04:48 sessions where I go through a 20 minute teaching video, it comes with videos just to help equip

1:04:56 not only pastors, but just church leaders, small groups, whatever it may be, on how to

1:05:01 create kind of a culture of life and how we even think about the image of God and people

1:05:08 and what that means as far as the issue of abortion and how we talk about it in churches.

1:05:12 Okay, we'll make sure to get that so that we can put that in the show notes.

1:05:16 I want to make sure that the guys can check that out and make sure that they have access

1:05:19 to that.

1:05:20 And we're kind of winding to a close here, but there are some other things I wanted to

1:05:23 get in.

1:05:24 So I'm trying to pick and choose.

1:05:25 There was one thing that I'm trying to remember, I should have actually made a screenshot

1:05:29 of it, but I think this was when, so I think it was when in Florida, Governor DeSantis

1:05:34 and the Florida, you know, state house or whatever, they announced that they were going

1:05:38 to be enacting the death penalty for people that raped children.

1:05:43 And I was one of the people that was like, yeah, yeah, that'll, that'll make people think

1:05:47 twice if they're going to have a sexual, or if they're going to rape a child or something

1:05:52 like that.

1:05:53 I've been advocating for that for a while and I don't have a biblical way to define that

1:05:58 aside from the fact that if you're, if you're killing somebody, scripture tells us that

1:06:02 we can kill you back.

1:06:03 And you know, but if you're raping somebody, that's different.

1:06:06 But I think if I remember correctly, you tweeted something like, like subtweeted an article

1:06:11 about that and said, wait a minute, this isn't pro life or it was something like that.

1:06:15 Like you were aghast that that people were excited, that pedophilic rapists were going

1:06:20 to be, you know, potentially put to death in the state of Florida.

1:06:24 And so I, I guess I wanted to ask you about that one is my memory and certainly remember

1:06:28 we should have to screenshot for sure.

1:06:30 Dang it.

1:06:31 Okay.

1:06:32 Well here, let's make it generic then let's just make it generic.

1:06:33 What are your thoughts on the death penalty?

1:06:35 Because that is one thing that people will say they're like, well, your pro capital punishment.

1:06:40 So you're not pro life.

1:06:42 And what I say is, are you comparing an unborn child in the womb to a murderer that's living

1:06:48 outside the womb?

1:06:49 Because we only kill people that kill people in this country.

1:06:51 That's it.

1:06:52 So but some people think, hey, you're not sufficiently pro life.

1:06:55 If you think the government should be able to take life.

1:06:57 So what are your thoughts on that?

1:06:58 Are you talking about for rape, like, like, you think there's no murder.

1:07:02 So do you think capital punishment should exist at all murder for rape?

1:07:06 I don't agree with you on that.

1:07:07 I'm a one of murder somebody for sure.

1:07:10 If they're right, babe, that I know, or even that I remotely know, I'm definitely going

1:07:13 to want to, but I'm just categorically, do you believe in capital punishment?

1:07:17 Do you believe in capital punishment?

1:07:19 I agree on capital punishment, but this is what I don't agree with.

1:07:22 And this is why I'm not a proponent of capital punishment, even though, even though on theoretically,

1:07:29 I do agree with capital punishment, I don't agree with capital punishment for some of

1:07:33 the reasons, even that I don't even know if I covered it in the book, I probably didn't.

1:07:38 But the way capital punishment has been administered, and I don't have the statistics in front

1:07:41 of me, but I would generically say when it comes to capital punishment, I mean, even

1:07:45 when we talk about people like Emmett Till, that's a very obviously well-known situation.

1:07:50 We talk about George Steny, or I can name a list of people who were black men or boys

1:07:57 who didn't receive fair trials, who were killed for much less than killing someone else.

1:08:03 And so in theory, I do agree with capital punishment, but I don't agree with capital

1:08:08 punishment being administered in this country because this country hasn't shown me the

1:08:12 responsibility to do it fairly.

1:08:14 So that's my biggest issue, honestly, with capital punishment is that when I look at

1:08:18 who gets killed and what they get killed for, and the rate I wish they get killed and the

1:08:23 unfairness that is administered, I don't agree with it being administered.

1:08:29 I don't think, however, that someone who is totally for capital punishment is not pro

1:08:35 life.

1:08:36 I don't agree with that.

1:08:37 I think that, you know, you for capital punishment, you can be pro life for sure because to what

1:08:41 you said, you're advocating for someone being killed for killing someone else.

1:08:48 I don't argue against that at all.

1:08:50 I'm just saying, in the context by which capital punishment has been administered in this country,

1:08:55 it makes it very hard for me to say yes to that, knowing the process and the unfairness

1:09:02 with that capital punishment has been administered in this country, so.

1:09:06 Well, and I think there's a lot of-

1:09:08 That makes sense.

1:09:09 That makes sense.

1:09:10 You've got something to say, I love it, but that's how I feel about it if that makes

1:09:15 sense.

1:09:16 Well, Benjamin, I'm setting you up for failure here because I'm asking you about these enormous

1:09:21 topics and I'm like, all right, you got five minutes, so give me all the possible scenarios

1:09:25 you get there out there.

1:09:26 This is a discussion that you and I can have over, you know, a drink in a cigar over like

1:09:30 you, an hour, an hour and a half.

1:09:32 But I think in general, you know, Christians a lot of times are guilted by, you know, seemingly

1:09:38 well-meaning people like, oh, you shouldn't advocate for death.

1:09:41 And then they'll turn the gospel on us and they'll be like, wait a minute.

1:09:44 You want that person that raped and murdered three girls to be killed?

1:09:49 But you know, wouldn't you want them to live for as long as possible so they have a better

1:09:53 chance of accepting the gospel?

1:09:55 And you know, it's stuff like that.

1:09:57 It's disingenuous and it's intellectually dishonest, but it's like, you know, in Genesis

1:10:01 and Exodus, Ecclesiastes, like we see, we see throughout that God gives us the ability

1:10:07 to take life to shed the blood of those that have shed blood back.

1:10:11 My argument and I, you know, again, we don't have enough time to get into it for rapists

1:10:16 is rape is a fundamentally different sin than other sins.

1:10:20 This church camp idea that all sins are equal is nonsense, but you are violating the most

1:10:26 sacred part of a human without taking their life.

1:10:29 So when you're holding someone down and forcibly penetrating them against their will, you were

1:10:34 doing something to the Amago day that is more disgusting and more vile than anything else

1:10:39 you could do to it aside from ending it entirely.

1:10:43 And so I think it is, it's in a egregious crime to an almost insane level.

1:10:48 But Benjamin, we'll make this or go ahead, go ahead.

1:10:51 I was going to say you make a compelling argument there when it comes to rape and rape is different

1:10:56 than any other.

1:10:57 I mean, outside of killing someone and one could argue that it's very similar in what

1:11:02 you're killing inside of that person, different than, than everything else.

1:11:07 So it's a, we definitely should have a coffee and talk about it.

1:11:12 All right.

1:11:13 I said whiskey in a cigar.

1:11:14 Okay.

1:11:15 So let's, let's get that straight.

1:11:16 I didn't say coffee.

1:11:17 That is just dirty water.

1:11:18 Nobody wants that, but also this is what we'll just so fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh beans,

1:11:24 bro.

1:11:25 Fresh beans.

1:11:26 Okay.

1:11:27 Here's the idea.

1:11:28 You got to get out of the actual beans.

1:11:29 Okay.

1:11:30 So we'll, you and I will sit down.

1:11:31 You can pour me a coffee.

1:11:32 Don't drink it.

1:11:33 But then as soon as you're done drinking your dirty water, we'll go and do jiu jitsu and

1:11:37 then we'll go grab some lunch and then we can talk about the rest of the stuff.

1:11:40 But we'll make this, we'll make this the last question of the day because I guarantee

1:11:45 you and we weren't able to get into everything today because I really wanted to focus on

1:11:48 the fact that you and I were both team Jesus were both team pro life.

1:11:52 We just may not think about everything in the same way, but there will be people Benjamin

1:11:55 that you already know that are going to read the new fight for life.

1:11:59 And they're going to be like Benjamin Watson's a Marxist.

1:12:02 He's a socialist.

1:12:03 He's a crazy person.

1:12:05 I disagree with him.

1:12:06 I thought he was on my team.

1:12:07 I trusted him.

1:12:09 They're going to feel violated by some of the subject matters you go into.

1:12:13 Some of the arguments that you make and to be frank, there are several arguments in

1:12:16 the book that I'm like, this doesn't make any sense at all.

1:12:18 But it's like you're giving us a brief overview of your opinions on an issue and you're laying

1:12:23 your opinions bare for everybody to evaluate.

1:12:26 And what is your message to people that are going to pick up this book, fervently read

1:12:29 it with intellectual honesty, running through their veins, but come away saying, yeah, I

1:12:34 just don't agree with him.

1:12:37 Perfectly fine, Kyle.

1:12:38 Perfectly fine.

1:12:39 I've been called a Marxist, people don't even know who Marx was.

1:12:42 I've been called CRT.

1:12:43 People don't know what CRT is.

1:12:45 I've been called woke.

1:12:46 People don't really know what wokeism is.

1:12:47 I mean, we can, we, that's another conversation that we should probably go into at some point.

1:12:52 So I, you know, this is what I say about, about me in this book.

1:12:59 I love people.

1:13:01 I love children.

1:13:03 I love the gospel.

1:13:05 I love my savior.

1:13:08 Everything I try to do is an outflowing of that.

1:13:12 The reason why I'm talking about this topic ain't got to do with me because I quite honestly,

1:13:17 there are better ways to sell a bunch of books and talking about this issue than the way

1:13:21 I'm talking about it.

1:13:23 But I do believe in being honest and being truthful and to pushing people toward a holistic

1:13:33 and whole view of scripture.

1:13:35 When I look at scripture, I see a lot of issues that I see that I try to present in this book

1:13:40 and apply them to a very, very difficult topic of abortion and a painful topic.

1:13:45 I've spoken around the country on this issue in a lot of different settings.

1:13:49 This was never my plan, Kyle, I wasn't playing in the NFL and was like, hey, I want to get

1:13:53 out and start talking about abortion.

1:13:55 That was not it, but sometimes God places you in places and doesn't make sense to you.

1:14:01 And I'm trying to grow where I've been planted for now for this season of my life.

1:14:06 And this is where he has me.

1:14:08 And so to the people that, that, you know, didn't agree, I would say thank you for reading

1:14:11 the book.

1:14:12 Thank you for trusting me enough even to read the book in the first place.

1:14:15 And then my hope is that all the things that you agree with and all the things that you

1:14:19 didn't agree with, you will then turn and have that conversation with someone close to you.

1:14:24 Your wife, a classmate, a coworker, a friend, a relative, because I do believe that the

1:14:32 more we have these conversations, the more lives will be safe that this is this is a

1:14:37 new time.

1:14:38 We got to try some different things.

1:14:39 And most importantly, I just want to bring awareness to some things that I think that

1:14:42 a lot of people just aren't talking about.

1:14:45 Well, Benjamin, I lied to you, but I'm going to blame you because you opened up a can of

1:14:50 worms by saying the word woke and then saying we should talk about it more.

1:14:53 So that was going to be the last question of the day, but we're just going to roll into

1:14:57 what will maybe be the last question of the day.

1:15:00 Let's talk about wokeness because I think there was a gal that wrote a book with the

1:15:04 Daily Wire.

1:15:05 She got crushed online because, you know, the interview asked her what wokeness was and

1:15:10 she just wrote a book about it, but she couldn't like say it in a capitalized little quote.

1:15:15 And you know, it just got clipped and everybody that hates, you know, the right loved it.

1:15:20 But I mean, wokeness, the easiest definition is a higher consciousness of supposed systemic

1:15:25 oppression.

1:15:26 But it's like, that's a basic way of saying it, but there's a whole lot more to it because

1:15:30 it's a derivative of Karl Marx's class consciousness and this constant state of awareness of where

1:15:35 you are and the continuum between, you know, bourgeoisie and proletariat and, you know,

1:15:39 the way it kind of leads to critical legal theory and critical legal studies and critical

1:15:42 theory.

1:15:43 Frankfort school, there's all this stuff in there.

1:15:45 But talk to me a little bit about wokeness because I'm all for using the term.

1:15:50 If you know what the hell it means and if you apply it correctly, but when anything you

1:15:54 don't like is woke, you sound stupid.

1:15:57 And I just I want people to to use it properly.

1:16:00 So so give me some thoughts on wokeness.

1:16:03 Are you saying Ron DeSantis sound stupid?

1:16:07 Hey, I like Ron DeSantis, but there are times when you categorize things as woke that have

1:16:12 no tangential connections to the concept of woke to where it's like, it's red meat.

1:16:17 It's red meat for your base.

1:16:18 So it's, you know, it's some brand that is left leaning during the month of June, putting

1:16:24 pride and trans flags on everything that they sell.

1:16:27 They don't even really mean it.

1:16:28 They're just there's virtue signaling.

1:16:30 So it's it's become a red meat virtue signal on the right to use the word woke, right?

1:16:35 Even if it's not applied appropriately.

1:16:38 So you're saying that people on the right, when they use it, they sound stupid.

1:16:43 Sometimes, especially when they use it incorrectly.

1:16:45 Absolutely.

1:16:46 Yeah.

1:16:47 Well, for me, I'll just tell you my experience with woke.

1:16:52 Yeah.

1:16:53 We've been woke long before white Republicans started talking about woke.

1:17:00 We've been woke when I was a kid.

1:17:02 They woke, what woke simply meant was being aware of injustice, specifically racial injustice,

1:17:11 educating yourself on your history, knowing that, you know, certain timeframes, certain

1:17:18 places, certain situations could be dangerous for you.

1:17:23 That's what woke was.

1:17:25 It wasn't a negative as a matter of fact, it was a positive.

1:17:29 And even going back to WB Du Bois talking about, you know, the double consciousness of the

1:17:34 double awareness as he talked about of the black American of being being American, yes,

1:17:42 we're American, America's my country, I love America, but also understanding that there's

1:17:47 a part of you that you've never acknowledged or been to and you have this double conscience

1:17:52 of being in a country that is your country, but a country that hasn't always accepted

1:17:55 you and also understanding that there's another part of you that is across the ocean where

1:18:02 your history first lied.

1:18:04 And so there's this dual consciousness as WB just talked about it.

1:18:09 And then specifically, there was a group of young men, they called them the Scottsboro

1:18:13 boys who were accused of raping a young woman.

1:18:18 And there was a song by a guy named Led belly that talked about staying woke and these young

1:18:23 men were sentenced to death, they ended up not not being killed because at the last minute

1:18:29 they were exonerated.

1:18:31 But the whole idea of wokeness was that was way back in the I believe the twenties.

1:18:36 And so in in in black in the black community, the term woke has been around for a long time.

1:18:45 And so for me, when I hear it being made pejorative, when I hear it being weaponized and when I

1:18:54 hear it being used as a catch all, as you said, for everything that is, you know, anti God

1:19:01 or anti America or LGBT budget that stuff that it had nothing to do with in the first

1:19:09 place, then it agrees me because it seems to be another misappropriation of a concept

1:19:17 that was beautiful and informative in the black community that is now taken outside of that

1:19:22 and turned into something that it wasn't and used as a weapon and weaponized and thrown

1:19:28 as you've mentioned as red meat to people who could quite frankly care less about the

1:19:34 origins or how it has been used in this country for a long time.

1:19:38 Before 2020, because also it was the timing when woke became so popularized.

1:19:46 It was 2020 when we were all in COVID and there was the murder of George Floyd.

1:19:51 And you remember we were all there all the stuff that was happening.

1:19:54 A lot of positives came out of that.

1:19:56 But part of the backlash or the repercussions is the use of the word woke now to identify

1:20:03 all these things.

1:20:04 And so I'm glad you said about people using it sound stupid because I didn't want to

1:20:07 be that harsh.

1:20:08 But glad you said that's how you're just you're just such a nice guy and you know you're sitting

1:20:13 there and you're nice little couch and all that.

1:20:15 So I can be mean so you can be nice.

1:20:18 But again, I think it's the it's it's the influence of postmodernism and Marxism on

1:20:25 culture that even leads to a concept of wokeness because I guess if you want to talk about how

1:20:29 I was raised because I was raised in a pretty rough city, but I was raised so you couldn't

1:20:34 call it woke you could maybe call it swivel because I was constantly told by my family

1:20:38 keep your head on a swivel, which was their way of saying like, don't be an idiot, like

1:20:43 make sure you're looking around, make sure you're you're not making bad decisions with

1:20:46 the people that you're hanging out with.

1:20:48 The number of talks I had with my parents about what happens if you get pulled over by

1:20:52 the cops, we had those talks all the time like, do this, do this, do this.

1:20:56 This was just something that was part of my upbringing.

1:20:58 That isn't the same for everybody else.

1:21:00 And we just didn't have a word for it that that went any deeper than, yeah, just don't

1:21:04 be a moron like don't do all those things.

1:21:06 But I am concerned, especially as we get into another election season next year, to where

1:21:11 it's like, you have to be more intellectually honest, and you have to do more than just

1:21:17 a univariate analysis of what's going on.

1:21:19 You can't just say that's not what I like.

1:21:21 So it's woke like that that means you're a rubber stamp.

1:21:25 There's not much that a rubber stamp can do Benjamin, other than click the same thing

1:21:29 onto different papers, right?

1:21:32 There's no, there's no nuance, which is everyone's favorite word.

1:21:35 If they're actually dumb, they use that to sound smart, but there is no nuance.

1:21:38 There's no a back and forth.

1:21:40 There's no anecdote that can be brought in to make the conversation better.

1:21:43 So I just caution people, if you want to call something woke, maybe take five seconds to

1:21:48 step back and say, if someone were to ask me the definition of woke right now, could I

1:21:52 give them one?

1:21:53 Because if not, maybe figure that out before we start calling stuff woke.

1:21:56 Is that fair?

1:21:57 That's fair.

1:21:58 I love that.

1:21:59 Okay.

1:22:00 Benjamin, we have covered a lot of ground today and there's so much more that we have

1:22:03 to cover.

1:22:04 And again, I'm very, very intent on you and I getting together and grappling before you

1:22:08 figure out what grappling is so that I can show you a thing or two, but that's all for

1:22:12 me.

1:22:13 Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?

1:22:14 Man, no, I appreciate the conversation.

1:22:16 Honestly, I appreciate that you pushed back.

1:22:18 This was fun, honestly.

1:22:20 And I appreciate you reading the book.

1:22:21 Look, a lot of times people, a lot of times people do interviews and they don't take time

1:22:25 to read the book and they pick out a few things and they only pick out the things that they

1:22:29 agree with.

1:22:30 And so I think it's important, life matters enough for us to grapple with how to solve

1:22:35 this problem.

1:22:36 And that's, yeah, and there are a bunch of different ways to do it and a bunch of different

1:22:41 ways for people to come together with different strengths and weaknesses to get it done.

1:22:47 And that's why their show sucks and this show is awesome.

1:22:49 Benjamin Watson, thank you for coming on Daunte and Life of Man's podcast.

1:22:53 Thank you, sir.

1:22:54 Yeah.

1:22:55 There you go, guys.

1:22:56 Hope you enjoyed my time with Benjamin Watson.

1:22:58 But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost add on Daunte and

1:23:01 Life.

1:23:02 Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental

1:23:05 and physical resilience.

1:23:07 So the three links I've got for you today, I've got a link to the Watson family website.

1:23:10 I got a link to where you can buy your copy of the new fight for life.

1:23:14 And I've also got a link to that thing that he talked about in the interview, the little

1:23:17 six session thing that kind of helps out with churches and the pro life calls.

1:23:20 It's called stand for life.

1:23:22 So I have their website on there as well.

1:23:24 Thank you guys for listening to this episode.

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1:23:46 Also we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content.

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1:23:56 The links are in the description.

1:23:58 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

1:24:00 Remember keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.

1:24:06 You're seeking the lion of Judah.